Robert Hansen wrote: " I might not qualify as an "independent researcher" but I certainly thought someone like Milgram or Bishop would."

Really? You believe that either of these gentlemen has a background in social science research, its protocols, etc.? I think you're fooling yourself.

As someone with actual, if limited, experience in such research, I would no sooner profess competence in conducting or publishing research in the physical sciences in general, let alone in a specific discipline than I would claim to be able to conduct surgery because I have removed the occasional hang nail.

But the fact is that neither of these scholars has any background in publishing research in either the social or the physical sciences. And to the extent that either of them has experience publishing original research of any kind whatsoever, it would be in the mathematical sciences, which has protocols that differ dramatically from social and physical sciences for reasons that might be obvious if you gave it a little thought.

Finally, new policies at NSF are not retroactive and do not release researchers from confidentiality agreements signed at the time of the research in which subjects were promised anonymity for participation.

I know you desperately want to find a logical argument that makes Messrs. Bishop and Milgram in the right for what many believe to be execrable intellectual harassment and bullying, but I'm afraid you'll need to do much better than you have thus far. Your ridiculous and insulting hypothetical disclaimer does not improve your position or theirs.